Top 10 Favorite Motorcycle Things to be Thankful For

Father's Day Edition

8: Carburetors

I started messing with carburetors on my first car, some weird Stromberg things, which made me appreciate the beauty and simplicity of the Holley double-pumper on my next car, which led me to an appreciation of all the geniuses behind nearly all the stuff we use every day. I know enough about how carburetors work now to make my R1 run okay, and to appreciate how much better it runs when an expert tunes them. I’m eternally grateful carburetors are obsolete on my transportation appliances.

But now that the electronic age is here to stay, I love the interplay of all the brass jets and needles and springs (especially when somebody else is doing the playing), but mostly because I know more about how carburetors work than my kid – who knows more about practically everything else. My 2000 R1, last year before EFI, has taken on a slight steam-age museum quality. Someday they’ll have to drag me out of the care facility to blow out the pilot jets and get it to start.

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Why on a Revolver EVO which has a retractable sun-shade?

Chris_in_Kalifornia

I would love to have a 1985 Honda CB700SC Nighthawk with electronic fuel injection. That would be my perfect motorcycle. The only thing I’d change would be to add fuel capacity. Give it 5.5 gallons or even just 5 would be cool. 3.7 just wasn’t enough. But since I no longer commute 90 miles each way every day I could do with 3.7. But NEVER EVER stop for gas in Ludlow, Goffs or that station 10 miles north of Barstow unless you absolutely have to. Their gas prices are astronomical even for CA. I love long range riding capacity. That’s one of the reasons I bought the Vstrom 650 instead of a Kawasaki Concours to commute on. That extra gallon of gas gave me security should a freeway be closed. Had I have been at LAX on my Vstrom I could have ridden home even the day of the last really big earthquake, the one that closed the 5/14 split. I’d have had to ride to San Bernardino and up over the 15 but I wouldn’t have needed gas. Oops. Got sidetracked. Darn, never did that when I was riding, did you?
EFI is definitely the best thing to come along.

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